Batavia’s Graveyard : The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History’s Bloodiest Mutiny - ARC

214 Pages·2002·1.45 MB·English

by  Mike Dash

Copyright © 2002 by Mike Dash
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Crown Publishers, New York, New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dash, Mike.
Batavia’s graveyard: the true story of the mad heretic who led history’s bloodiest mutiny / Mike Dash.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Batavia (Ship) 2. Cornelisz, Jeronimus. 3. Shipwrecks—Australia.4. Mutiny. 5. Shipwreck victims. I.
Title.
G530.D27 2002
919.41’3—dc21 2001054775
eISBN: 978-1-4000-4510-5
v3.0
For Penny:
my Creesje
Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
MAP: THE UNITED PROVINCES c. 1628
MAP: ROUTE OF THE BATAVIA
MAP: HOUTMAN’S ABROLHOS
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
PREFACE
Prologue: Morning Reef
1. The Heretic
2. Gentlemen XVII
3. The Tavern of the Ocean
4. Terra Australis Incognita
5. The Tiger
6. Longboat
7. “Who Wants to Be Stabbed to Death?”
8. Condemned
9. “To Be Broken on the Wheel”
Epilogue: On the Shores of the Great South-Land
FOOTNOTES
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DUTCH PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
OTHER BOOKS BY MIKE DASH

“I looked at him with great sorrow: such a
scoundrel, cause of so many disasters and of the
shedding of human blood. Besmirched in every way not
only with abominable misdeeds but also with damnable
heresy . . . and still he had the intention to go on.”
FROM THE INTERROGATION OF JERONIMUS
CORNELISZ
BY FRANCISCO PELSAERT
Preface
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THIS BOOK IS INVENTED. It is closely
based on contemporary sources, and direct quotes, where they appear, are drawn
from those same documents. In the few places where I have drawn my own
conclusions about the thoughts and actions of the Batavia’s passengers and crew,
I have indicated the fact in the notes.
Jeronimus Cornelisz and his companions sailed at a time when the use of
surnames was still rare in the Dutch Republic, and when it was correspondingly
common for names to be spelled and written in several different ways within a
single document. I have taken advantage of this fact to avoid the possibility of
confusion between two similarly named people, where there is contemporary
authority for such usage. Thus Daniel Cornelisz, a mutineer, is referred to as
“Cornelissen” throughout, to prevent him being confused with Jeronimus; and of
the two Allert Janszes who were on the ship, one has become Allert Janssen.
It is impossible to make accurate comparisons between prices in the Golden
Age of the Dutch Republic and today’s prices, but—roughly estimated—one
guilder in 1629 bought the equivalent of $75 in 2001.
Place names are spelled as they were in the seventeenth century, thus Leyden
rather than Leiden, and Sardam rather than Zaandam.
MIKE DASH, London, June 2001